Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

In the world of antique automobiles, those four words carry massive weight. Springing from the imaginative mind of Edward S. "Ned" Jordan, these revolutionary, wonderfully creative advertisements turned mere cars--assemblies of steel, iron, wood and rubber--into flights of fantasy, means of escape, into youthful accessories to be worn like the latest upscale fashions by those affluent and in the know.
And yet behind the colors, athleticism, rebellion and exuberance was a real--even rather ordinary--means of transportation. "Playboy" was the moniker that Jordan gave his rakish two-seat roadster when it debuted in April of 1919. The inspiration behind creating this car had come from the daughter of one of Jordan's financiers. As explained in The Jordan Automobile: A History--written by Huntington, West Virginia, resident James "Jim" Lackey, the owner of our feature car--Jordan told the story of a pivotal conversation that the two held at a social gathering: "Dancing that night with Eleanor Borton, age 19, who remarked, 'Mr. Jordan, why don't you build a car for the girl who loves to swim, paddle and shoot and for the boy who loves the roar of a cut out?' Thanks, girl, for a million-dollar idea." The low, spare lines of the car were reportedly influenced by a custom roadster being built in a New York City coachworks at the commission of theatrical producer Florenz Ziegfeld; the American Body Company in Buffalo created this Jordan prototype.
Jordan had reputedly considered calling the sporting car the "Doughboy," but decided that the soldiers returning after fighting in the Great War would likely be more attracted to an ideal of fun and frivolity instead. His chosen name was adapted from a noteworthy Irish play called The Playboy of the Western World.
This model, like all other Jordans built since the company's founding in 1916, was what some called an "assembled" car, meaning that it was made up of components that were produced by numerous suppliers. While Detroit industry giants like Ford had the finances, engineering might and physical ability to produce almost every component themselves, a small company like the Cleveland, Ohio-based Jordan Motor Car Company chose to contract with high-quality original equipment suppliers for everything from bodies to engines, upholstered seats, headlamps, wheels and tires.
Early Jordan car bodies were made of aluminum over wood framing, and the company advertised this fact, noting aluminum's light weight and imperviousness to rust. By the early 1920s, and without fanfare, the bodies being supplied to Jordan were conventional composite steel over wood framing, but Budd of Detroit began making innovative all-steel Playboy and Observation Sedan bodies for Jordan in 1926. Other bodymakers who supplied Jordan with "raw" primed bodies were the aforementioned American Body Company; the Bryant Body Company and Walker-Wells/Walker Body Company, both of Amesbury, Massachusetts; and the Ohio Body & Blower Company of Cleveland.
Period trade magazines noted that Jordan did make its own small parts and fasteners, items which were less expensive to design and create in-house than to source from OE suppliers. The Jordan Motor Car Company would take out a small number of patents through the years, and those included a steering column bushing, patent #1,577,048, and a spring-loaded leaf spring shackle mounting point design, #1,600,955.
The Playboy arrived in 1919 as part of the Series F, a substitution for the former Sport Roadster; it joined the Silhouette Four and Seven touring cars, the Town Sedan and Four-Passenger Brougham. Like its stablemates, the Playboy was powered by a Continental model 9N 303.3-cu.in. L-head straight-six engine that made 56hp. Among the many individual suppliers' components making up a Playboy were a Delco distributor, Fedders or Sparton radiator, a Borg & Beck or Timken clutch, Detroit Gear three-speed transmission, Mather semi-elliptic springs and Timken Detroit rear axle. Its body was mounted on a Parrish and Bingham Company or Hydraulic Pressed Steel Company frame.
Available in Burgundy Old Wine and Scarlet finishes, the Playboy rode on a 127-inch wheelbase and was noteworthy for its custom appearance with a European-inspired tall, finely louvered hood, low-slung beltline and steeply sloped tail. The car's top and frame were removable, ensuring that a bulky folded stack didn't spoil the car's lines, and a rumble seat could add room for two more.
The 120-inch wheelbase Series M, offered in 1920-'21 and using a 224-cu.in., 56hp Continental 7 R straight-six, followed this stylish, if conventionally underpinned pattern. Despite its carryover wheelbase, the Series MX Playboy was new in 1922, and was equipped with a 245.6-cu.in. Continental 6 S engine. Jordan trumpeted this new flathead six-cylinder engine as an exclusive design that Continental made for no other automakers.
"Jordan supposedly owned a patent on that engine," Jim Lackey explains, "but I doubt if they did--perhaps Continental just agreed to let Jordan say that for political purposes. Still, I have never found any record of the 6 S being used in anything but a Jordan. Although it used the same cylinder head, the intake and exhaust manifolds were on the opposite side of the block. Jordan ballyhooed the fact that the 6 S design belonged to them. Some parts were manufactured specifically for Jordan cars, but they mostly used run-of-the-mill components."
That engine was topped by a Stromberg Model 02 updraft carburetor fed by a Stewart vacuum tank. Delco components like the distributor, ignition coil and starter made up most of the electrical system. Spark plugs were Champion Toledos and the radiator was made by the Cleveland Radiator Company, while the front and rear axles were by Timken and Timken Detroit, respectively. A flat plate Detroit clutch acted upon a Detroit Gear & Machine Co. transmission, while Gemmer components steered the car; it was stopped by mechanical externally contracting 15¾ x 1¾-inch drums on the rear wheels. Perfection provided the 367⁄8-inch front and 55¾-inch rear semi-elliptic leaf springs, the snubber shocks were Gabriel #3, the chassis lubrication was via an Alemite Pressure System and the Firestone hickory wood-spoke wheels featured "Type E" rims.
Our feature 1923 Playboy was built late in the model year and features the single-pane windshield that replaced the 1922's horizontally split, venting windshield. The Ohio Body & Blower Company-built body's design has the short deck, long hood, wheels-at-the-corners proportions that would come to typify American performance cars built more than 40 years later, and its close-coupled passenger compartment and tightly wrapped fenders underline its sporty appeal.
That visual allure is only part of what drew Jim to this Playboy 30 years ago, when he bought the AACA Grand National Senior and Preservation award winner as a major restoration project; another factor was that it is of the same vintage as that famous singular advertisement--the one with the evocative Fred Cole painting of the rider on horseback pacing the woman driving the roadster under a windblown sky--that changed the way that automobile advertising was approached.
The simple, powerful advertisement that made Jordan a household name and the Playboy a recognized sports car, almost in the legendary league of the Stutz, was a brilliant bit of targeted marketing, Jim explains. "It was a good-looking car, like the Corvette or Thunderbird in their day, and if you were going to be a man about town, you had to own a Playboy. But it was not the car that everybody thought it would be; it was about 80 percent hype, in my opinion, but they did a good job of that. It had swankier styling, but under the hood, you can't tell a sedan from a Playboy.
"Jordan placed a lot of good color ads in magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair, House & Garden and The Saturday Evening Post. These were high-quality magazines with good paper that went to the better households, to people with higher income," he continues. "Ned Jordan knew what he was doing. There were a lot of pretty good cars available at that time, and the Jordan was not head and shoulders above, but they had an effective ad campaign. That ad did more for Jordan than anything else ever did."
The Jordan Motor Car Company continued to advertise its premium Playboy roadster in a characteristic stylish, romantic mode through the 1920s. The Model K arrived for 1924, and initially its only improvement was a dashboard-mounted fuel gauge; the positive buzz that surrounded the Napier Green Playboy show car fitted with four-wheel hydraulic Lockheed brakes, shown at that year's New York Automobile Show, meant that this feature was soon added to the car as a running change. The new Model A Great Line Eight Playboy, introduced in mid-1925 with a 125.5-inch wheelbase, featured this up-to-date braking system as well as a brand-new Continental 9 K 268.6-cu.in., 74hp straight-eight engine and nickel-plated radiator shell and drum headlamps.
A Budd all-steel body graced the smaller, Model J Line Eight Playboy for 1926, the year that the company's overproduction first left it floundering. This smaller car featured a 116-inch wheelbase and 64hp, 246.6-cu.in. 8 S engine. That trouble was exaggerated when the 1927 Model J1 Playboy gained a smaller entry-luxury sibling, the slow-selling Model R Little Custom Tomboy. Two new top designs--a collapsible top with functioning landau irons and a permanent top with dummy irons--expanded the roadster repertoire of the 1928 Model JE Air Line Eight Playboy Coupe. The fact that no body tags have ever been found on 1929-'32 Jordans influences the belief that by 1929, the automaker had brought body production under its control when the neighboring Facto Auto Body Co. was formed to make Jordan bodies.
1929's stock market crash only added to the difficulties that Jordan had been facing for a couple of years, when they overestimated the demand for their cars, including their unpopular small car line. The Model G Great Line Ninety Playboy roadster was dramatically restyled for 1929 with modern, smooth lines and a racy fold-flat windshield; powered by an 85hp, 268.6-inch Continental 15 S, it was joined by the ritzy Speedboy dual-cowl phaeton. The Model 90 Playboy was sold in 1930, but was eclipsed by the stunning 114hp, 322-cu.in. straight-eight Model Z Sportsman Sedan and Speedway Ace roadster, of which an estimated 14 were built; the automaker entered bankruptcy in May of 1931, and the Playboy was no more.
"Jordan's real downfall was in 1926, when they got too big for their britches and manufactured too many cars," Jim reflects. "They had about 10 good years when they sold the upscale feeling you'd get from owning a Jordan, when their advertising was a cut above: Fords were made for working stiffs, but Jordans were for the country-club set. But then the business turned down. I think they would have made it if the Depression hadn't come along--they had good products. The 1929-'31 Jordans had the styling, handling, brakes. If you're barely making it and the Depression hits, and you can buy a Model T Ford for $300 while a Jordan is $3,000, what are you going to do? There wasn't a need for Jordan after the Depression. The industry got squeezed, and a lot of good companies paid the price."

This article originally appeared in the February, 2011 issue of Hemmings Classic Car.